Method for transmitting pieces of information between vehicles of a vehicle platoon and method for processing an assistance request output by a first vehicle of a vehicle platoon during a lane change by at least one second vehicle of the vehicle platoon

Abstract

A method for transmitting pieces of information between vehicles of a vehicle platoon during a lane change for circumventing an obstacle. A first vehicle of the vehicle platoon checks, in response to an identification of the obstacle, whether an evasive maneuver of the first vehicle into an alternative lane is possible. If the check yields that the evasive maneuver of the first vehicle is not possible, an assistance request is output to a communication interface for communication with at least one second vehicle of the vehicle platoon to prompt the second vehicle to conduct an evasive maneuver into the alternative lane.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE[0001]The present application claims the benefit under 35 U.S.C. § 119 of German Patent Application No. DE 102018205263.8 filed on Apr. 9, 2018, which is expressly incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.BACKGROUND INFORMATION[0002]The present invention is directed to a device, a method, a computer program.[0003]During so-called platooning, multiple vehicles drive behind one another at a very small distance in an electronically coupled manner to benefit from the slipstream in terms of fuel consumption. One challenge is the circumnavigation of obstacles, taking interferences by other road users into consideration.SUMMARY[0004]The present invention provides an example method and an example device for transmitting pieces of information between vehicles of a vehicle platoon during a lane change for circumnavigating an obstacle, a method and a device for processing an assistance request output by a first vehicle of a vehicle platoon during a lane change by at leas...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0004]The present invention provides an example method and an example device for transmitting pieces of information between vehicles of a vehicle platoon during a lane change for circumnavigating an obstacle, a method and a device for processing an assistance request output by a first vehicle of a vehicle platoon during a lane change by at least one second vehicle of the vehicle platoon, and a corresponding computer program. The measures described herein allow advantageous refinements of and improvements on the example device in accordance with the present invention.

[0005]The approach described here is based on the finding that an evasive maneuver of a vehicle platoon may be coordinated based on an electronic data exchange between individual vehicles of the vehicle platoon. In particular, an interference-free lane change of the vehicle platoon may thus also be ensured when vehicles not part of the platoon are present on an alternative lane. For this purpose, a prompt may be transmitted by a platoon participant impeded from carrying out an evasive maneuver by a vehicle in the alternative lane to a further platoon participant, such as a following platoon participant, to change the lane. Due to the lane change of the further platoon participant, further vehicles, in particular further vehicles which are not part of the vehicle platoon or do not belong to the vehicle platoon may be prevented from moving up into the alternative lane, so that a sufficiently large gap is created for the vehicles of the vehicle platoon to safely change the lane. In this way, the problem of a collective lane change may be solved in a simple manner in the event of interferences by other road users.

Problems solved by technology

One challenge is the circumnavigation of obstacles, taking interferences by other road users into consideration.

The method may furthermore include a step of reducing a speed of the first vehicle when the check yields that the evasive maneuver of the first vehicle is not possible.

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